


The Fray Family Christmas Card

by floralathena



Series: Happy Gay Shadowhunters [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/F, Family, Fluff, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9114799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralathena/pseuds/floralathena
Summary: The envelope is lying on her pillow, bright red and sealed with a glittery candy cane sticker. She knows who it’s from, because she can practically see Clary carefully peeling the sticker off of a sheet to place it at just the right angle.Izzy smiles, and sits on her bed to open it. She’s careful not to rip the envelope or the sticker, because she saw Clary wince when Jace tore open a card that Clary had made for some holiday or other, and she feels like there’s a chance that Clary has some kind of sixth sense for the destruction of pretty things. Izzy wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings by treating this gift callously. Maybe it was a card Clary gave to everybody, but Clary left it on her bed, and you don’t do that unless you really want someone to see what you’re giving them.





	

The envelope is lying on her pillow, bright red and sealed with a glittery candy cane sticker. She knows who it’s from, because she can practically  _ see _ Clary carefully peeling the sticker off of a sheet to place it at just the right angle. 

Izzy smiles, and sits on her bed to open it. She’s careful not to rip the envelope or the sticker, because she saw Clary wince when Jace tore open a card that Clary had made for some holiday or other, and she feels like there’s a chance that Clary has some kind of sixth sense for the destruction of pretty things. Izzy wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings by treating this gift callously. Maybe it was a card Clary gave to everybody, but Clary left it on her bed, and you don’t do that unless you really want someone to see what you’re giving them. She slides the card out of the envelope, and it’s probably the sweetest thing she’s ever seen.

The card itself is a darker shade of red than the envelope, probably to balance out how bright the picture on it was. It reads,  _ Happy Holidays from the Frays! _ and Izzy wonders if the rhyme was on purpose or just a happy accident. Clary, Simon, Luke, and Jocelyn are all standing together in front of a mantle covered in twinkle lights. Luke and Jocelyn are dressed nicely in dark red and green sweaters, the epitome of a happy couple, and Izzy’s heart aches a little at the sight. Luke is wearing a sequined Santa hat, and Jocelyn’s wearing a headband with reindeer antlers. They have their arms around each other’s waists and they look so much in love that Izzy wonders how that love could endure Valentine over and over again and still be so strong. She’s grateful that it has, no matter how much it makes her long for her own parents to be different. Simon and Clary, however, steal the show. Simon is wearing the most garish blue sweater she’s ever seen, lined with silver tinsel at the collar and sleeves, and boasting a menorah with simulated flames which lit up. He’s smiling so widely that if Izzy squints, she can see a hint of fang, but she supposes that no mundane would look hard enough to notice or make anything of it. For once, Simon looks purely happy, despite how pale he is and how sharp his teeth are. His dark hair is messy and full of glitter, and Izzy wonders if he got all of it out after the picture, if she could still ruffle his hair and get some on her hand that wouldn’t go away. She would complain about finding it everywhere for a week and secretly smile whenever she found some on her clothes. His arm is draped over Clary’s shoulder, right next to a rune peeking out from her sweater. Clary has an arm around his neck, and has pulled their faces together in a manner that all of a sudden reminds Izzy that they had grown up together. She envisions a tiny Clary with pigtails and a missing front tooth squishing her face up against Simon’s as Jocelyn Fray holds up a digital camera, and it’s the most precious thing she’s never seen. Clary’s sweater is bright green, lined with red tinsel similar to Simon’s, and a cute little gingerbread man decorated to look like Santa is on the front. Clary’s got on glittery green eye shadow, and silver bell earrings, and her eyes are sparkling and her teeth are a brilliant white that Izzy can hardly look at. Clary looks more beautiful than Izzy’s ever seen her, because as enchanting as she is in battle, nothing can compare to the pure happiness on her face in the family photo. She’s never seen somebody with a rune on their neck look so unapologetically goofy.

It’s nice.

What really gets Izzy, though, is the sign they’re holding. Simon holds one side and Clary holds the other, and it says,  _ “Happy Holidays, from our family to yours. With love, the Frays,” _ and Izzy wants to cry a little. She can only imagine what her mother would say if she saw any of her children in an over-the-top sweater, smiling so wide, wasting time on a silly picture. She can’t imagine her mother in any kind of sweater, any clothing not made for business. She can’t imagine her father wearing a Santa hat or ever holding her mother like he means it. 

She can, however, see her brothers. They’re all wearing the ugliest sweaters Izzy could find, and Alec is annoyed and Jace is delighted because Alec is annoyed and Max is happy because his sweater has a dinosaur in a Santa hat on it. Izzy sees herself in the middle of it all, smiling and laughing as Max jumps around and Jace tells Alec how great he looks in glitter and Alec tries to call Magnus for a rescue and Izzy takes his phone and Clary and Simon are behind the camera telling them all to say cheese. Clary blows Izzy a kiss and Simon teases them and Jace and Alec stop bickering to put their arms around each other and Max stands in front so that his sweater is prominently displayed and Izzy is crying.

Her tears hit the surface of the photo and she quickly wipes them away, stuffs the card back into the envelope and stands up. She dabs at her face with a tissue and fixes her makeup and decides to go train because she could really use a distraction.

The bright red envelope is back where it started, and the little candy cane sticker mocks Izzy as she leaves the room.

 

\---

 

“Miss Fray, what kind of girl do you think I am? Pulling me off to some dark corner alone…”

Isabelle teases Clary, who is pulling her by the hand to the back of her mother’s art gallery. 

“I have a surprise!”

“Is it an appropriate surprise for your mother’s place of business?”

“Yes!” Izzy watches as Clary’s face flushes, and decides she likes making her blush.

“Darn. I guess Santa missed my letter, then.”

“Oh, hush, Iz. You could get anybody you wanted and you know it.”

_ Not you _ , she thinks, but laughs at Clary’s remark rather than responding. Clary pulls her to a frosted glass door, and Izzy can see blurred movement behind the door and lots of red. She hopes it isn’t some kind of wild vampire rave, because as open-minded as she is, blood isn’t exactly her thing. Clary gives Isabelle a quick look, her nose scrunching up in happiness, and all of a sudden Izzy wouldn’t mind walking into a bloodbath as long as it was with Clary.

“Surprise!” Clary squeals, pushing the door open.

Isabelle freezes.

It’s her dream, right in front of her- except even better. 

A large canvas is set up, hand-painted with the most beautiful snowy landscape Izzy has ever seen, and she can  _ see  _ Clary standing with streaks of white paint on her jeans, her hair messily tied up, an old can full of paintbrushes by her feet. Jace is running around the room with Max on his back, making sharp turns and dipping and swooping while Max shrieks with glee.  Simon stands behind a nice camera on a tripod, negotiating something about Magnus’s apartment with Alec, who is  _ wearing a sparkly sweater _ . 

Izzy could cry.

“Finally, you’re here! Come on, if I have to wear one of these, so do you.” 

Alec grabs Isabelle’s hand and pulls her over to a rack of the ugliest sweaters she’s ever seen, and before she knows it, she’s hot and itchy and sparkling and it’s the greatest thing she’s ever felt.

Clary plops a pair of reindeer antlers onto Izzy's head and gently pushes her into position with a warm hand on her waist. She yanks Alec and Jace in front of the canvas and arranges their arms manually. Max doesn’t need to be told twice, because his sweater has a robot Santa and he wants the whole world to see it. Simon tells them all to say cheese. Izzy smiles for the picture with her brothers and tries to ignore the two empty spots in her heart. Clary’s face is adorably scrunched under her sequined Santa hat and Simon’s smile is so wide that his fangs are in full view, and all of a sudden, she knows what’s wrong.

“Get in here, you two. The camera has a timer, right?”

Simon nods enthusiastically and sets it, as Clary bounds towards Izzy to catch her in a hug. 

And a hug just isn’t enough this time, and so Izzy pulls her in for a sweet kiss. She hears the camera go off and Simon saying “Oops” and her little brother making retching noises while her older brother shushes him and her adoptive brother calls her a loser and finally, finally, it all feels right.

 

\---

 

Magnus laughs when he opens the card. Isabelle is  _ very _ enthusiastically embracing Clary while Max hides his face in Jace’s bright red sweater. Alec is feigning a long-suffering look, completely failing to hide the fondness in his eyes as he stands with one arm around Jace’s neck and another around Simon’s waist. Simon and Jace look as though they’ve just heard the funniest joke in the world. 

Magnus Bane never thought that he would be hanging a card which read  _ Happy Holla Daze from the Shadowhunters (ft. Simon) _ on his refrigerator. Nevertheless, here he is, gazing fondly at a group of Shadowhunters. 

_ Oh,  _ he thinks, _ what miracles the season brings. _


End file.
